Research On Religion

Sung Joon Jang on the Boy Scouts of America

tonygill — Mon, 14 May 2012 08:00:08 +0000

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“On my honor, I will do my best to do my duty, to God and my country….” And so begins the Oath of the Boy Scouts of America, an organization now over a century old and the largest youth organization in America. It is also an organization with a global reach. To what extent are the ideals of the Boy Scouts upheld by their members, particularly into their adult years? Prof. Sung Joon Jang, an associate professor of sociology at Baylor University and a faculty fellow at Baylor’s Institute for Studies of Religion, joins us to discuss the most extensive sociological study of the Boy Scouts to date. Commissioned by the Boy Scouts and funded by the John Templeton Foundation, Prof. Jang along with his colleagues Byron Johnson and Young-Il Kim surveyed over 2,500 adults to see whether belonging to the Boy Scouts had any affect on their adult behavior and character. Their particular focus was to see whether or not becoming an Eagle Scout, the BSA’s highest award, resulted in prosocial behavior in adulthood. After discussing what it takes to become and Eagle Scout, and the methodology involved in the study, Prof. Jang discusses the results of his survey in a variety of categories including exercise & recreation, social capital, environmental stewardship, community service, goal orientation, and leadership. The study largely confirms that becoming an Eagle Scout leads to very positive outcomes later in life. Nonetheless, there are some surprising results along the way, including interesting comparisons with Boy Scouts who never made the rank of Eagle. Throughout the interview, Tony reflects upon his time in the Boy Scouts. While never achieving Eagle, Tony did work at a BSA summer camp and was active in Order of the Arrow, the BSA’s honor society. After our discussion with Prof. Jang, Tony visits with an old friend he knew back in his Scouting days, Gene Sjoberg. Gene provides colorful detail about his Eagle experience and how it has affected his life, shares a few laughs with Tony, and leaves us with perhaps the most powerful and inspiring moment in this podcast’s two-year history. Wise advice from an outstanding citizen. Recorded: May 3, 2012

RELATED LINKS

Prof. Sung Joon Jang’s biography at Baylor University’s Department of Sociology.

Eagle Scouts: Merit Beyond the Badge, by Sung Joon Jang, Byron Johnson, and Young-Il Kim. This link includes free access to the report discussed in today’s podcast.

Baylor University’s Institute for Studies of Religion.

Camp Long Lake, BSA (the camp Tony and Gene worked at located in Dundee, WI).

RELATED PODCASTS

Byron Johnson on Religion & Delinquency.

Phillip Muñoz on Catholic Bishops, Religious Liberty, and Health Care Mandates

tonygill — Mon, 07 May 2012 08:00:11 +0000

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops recently released a document on religious liberty that criticized a new regulatory provision in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (a.k.a., Obamacare) requiring employers to provide insurance coverage for contraceptions, sterilization and abortion-inducing drugs. Prof. Phillip Muñoz, the Tocqueville Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Notre Dame and an associate professor in the Notre Dame Law School, helps us wade through this controversy by explaining the bishops’ argument and how it relates to religious liberty. After briefly outlining the controversy, we take up the initial issue of religious liberty with Phillip discussing what it means to have a right to religious liberty and then outlining the Catholic position on religious freedom. We use the realm of educational policy to help frame the general theoretical and political issue, specifically pointing to the Wisconsin v Yoder Supreme Court case that challenged whether Amish citizens could exempt their children from mandatory schooling laws based on religious grounds. Cases of parents refusing to have their children vaccinated for theological reasons is also discussed, and we note the tension between trying to balance the public interest with the right to individual conscience. Following this general discussion, we return to the recent health care mandate, discussing the politics behind the new regulations and the Catholic bishops’ reaction. Prof. Muñoz notes how the Catholic Church’s response was not to ask for particular exemptions from these regulations for their institutions (including dioceses, hospitals, and universities), but rather to oppose the mandate on a more general ground. It is noted that it is not just Church-owned institutions that are affected, but these regulations can have an impact on secular business owners who may be Catholic and/or simply opposed to paying for the contraception and abortions of their employees. The reaction of the Obama administration, including the testimony of HHS Director Kathleen Sebelius, is considered. Phillip notes how the issue of religious freedom, or the desire to opt out of these policies on grounds of moral conscience, never really occured to the people drafting and implementing the regulations. Tony then asks Phillip about a tension he has noticed within Catholic social thought, between a tendency among bishops and other Church leaders to prefer a larger government-run welfare system and the Catholic principle of subsidiarity. That latter principle states that social problems should be handled at the lowest level possible, a philosophy akin to notions of federalism and a more laissez-faire political philosophy. We speculate about how this issue may affect the upcoming presidential election, and Tony asks Phillip how much sway the opinion and pronouncement of bishops has over Catholic voters. We finish our discussion by noting that the letter drafted by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops also contained concerns over violations of religious freedom in other areas of public policy, including the immigration issue. Here, the bishops appear to stand with the Obama administration in opposing recent laws in Alabama and elsewhere that make it difficult for the Catholic Church to minister to undocumented immigrants. We end the podcast with Phillip reading the prayer that the bishops used to close their pastoral letter, a salient reminder of how the secular and the sacred cross paths in the public square and the importance that freedom represents to a religious society. Recorded: May 2, 2012.

RELATED LINKS

Prof. Phillip Muñoz’s biography and website at Notre Dame.

God and the Founders: Madison, Washington, and Jefferson, by Vincent Phillip Muñoz.

“Catholic Bishops Take on Obama,” by Vincent Phillip Muñoz in The Weekly Standard.

“Our First, Most Cherished Liberty: A Statement on Religious Liberty,” by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops Ad Hoc Committee for Religious Liberty.

Wisconsin v Yoder Supreme Court Case (mentioned in podcast).

HHS Director Kathleen Sebelius testimony on contraception mandate and religious liberty, mentioned in the podcast (from GetReligion).

RELATED PODCASTS

Joe Fuiten on Clergy and Politics.

Erik Stanley on Clergy & Free Speech.

Corwin Smidt on Religion, Elections, and the God Gap.

Allen Hertzke on Religious Liberty.

Jeremy Lott on Real Clear Religion

tonygill — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 08:00:53 +0000

Thanks for visiting our podcast. You can listen with the links to the right, subscribe on iTunes, our RSS feed, and like our Facebook page for updates and a countdown of the host’s most favorite interviews.

How do people get their news about religion? Are there any stereotypes or trends surrounding the reporting of religious news? And which city is better — Fairfax, VA or Lynden, WA? To answer these timeless questions, we invited Jeremy Lott, editor of Real Clear Religion (and a number of other “Real Clear” websites) to discuss the role internet technology has played on how we obtain our information about religion. We begin our conversation by talking about what Real Clear Religion (RCR) does. In short, Real Clear Religion serves as a news portal for news on religion, gathering articles and op-ed pieces from around the interwebs to put it in one handy, easy-to-get-to source. The portal, part of the “Real Clear” network of sites, also contains a blog and original writing by the individuals who manage the site. Through the process of this discussion, Tony learns a new term — intelligent aggregation. Jeremy details the history of the Real Clear network, his background, and how he became involved with RCR. The “nuts and bolts” of the site are then revealed with Jeremy discussing where he plucks the news stories from, how he determines what will be featured, and what the general goal of the website is. Following this, we discuss stereotypes about religion in the media. Our conversation takes an ineresting diversion to the topic of Wikipedia and how that website has changed the way we obtain and digest information. Tony not only lays bare his thoughts on Wikipedia and why academics might not like it, but also reveals that a former student of his created a Wikipedia page for him! After noting that RCR does not want to exclusively talk about religion and politics, but rather see religion as an aspect of human life that is important in-and-of-itself, Tony prompts Jeremy to talk about religion and politics. We do this by examining various media trends, particularly with respect to the upcoming presidential election. We wonder if recent news stories about evangelicals (and the millenial evangelicals) are becoming less involved with politics and whether or not they would vote for a Mormon presidential candidate. Finish off discussing Jeremy’s recent book on hypocrisy and his plans to write about C.S. Lewis and death. Recorded: April 17, 2012.

RELATED LINKS

Real Clear Religion. (You can access Real Clear Politics, Real Clear Books, Real Clear Science and other portals at this website as well.)

Jeremy Lott’s bio on Wikipedia.com (whether accurate or not). Tony’s Wikipedia bio, referenced in the podcast, can be found here (again, accurate or not).

In Defense of Hypocrisy: Picking Sides in the War on Virtue, by Jeremy A. Lott.

The Warm Bucket Brigade: The Story of the American Vice Presidency, by Jeremy A. Lott.

William F. Buckley (Christian Encouter Series), by Jeremy A. Lott.

I’ll Never Forget It: Memoirs of a Political Accident from East Baltimore, by Marvin Mandel, Jeremy Lott, and Robert L. Ehrlich, Jr.

Get Religion, a website that tracks media reporting of religion (mentioned in the podcast).

RELATED PODCASTS

Luis Bolce on the Media and Anti-Fundamentalism.

Douglas Baker on Dominionism, Michele Bachman, and Rick Perry.

Patrick Mason on Anti-Mormonism and Mitt Romney.

Bradley Wright on Christian Stereotypes.

Margarita Mooney on Pope Benedict XVI & Cuba

tonygill — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 08:00:34 +0000

We celebrate our 100th episode with returning guest Prof. Margarita Mooney discussing Pope Benedict XVI’s historic visit to Cuba. Prof. Mooney is an assistant professor of sociology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Faculty Fellow at the Carolina Population Center. As a Cuban-American, she has maintained a personal link to the island nation, has made several trips to Cuba and maintains contact with a variety of individuals still residing there. Our conversation begins with a general survey of the religious landscape in Cuba since the 1959 communist revolution. Prof. Mooney details how religion, and particularly the Catholic Church, was repressed by the Castro regime. Priests were imprisoned and bishops excluded from the island, serving to weaken the institutional strength of the Catholic Church, but not extinguish its presence entirely. We also discuss how communism served to create what Prof. Mooney terms “anthropological impact,” a concept that basically relates to how social relations between individuals are damaged. As we discuss later, repairing this damage was a centerpiece of Pope Benedict’s message to Cubans. The recent religious history of Cuba also covers the relative thawing between the communist regime and the Church following the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Cuban government’s subsequent loss of subsidies. The need to rely upon religious institutions for help in dealing basic social services was one of the concerns here. We also talk about the importance of Pope John Paul II’s historic visit to the island in 1998. Following this discussion, Margarita summarizes the main points made by Pope Benedict XVI in his “Homily in Havana.” The issue of promoting “authetic liberty” as well as promoting virtue as a basis for creating an “authentic fatherland” were central to the pope’s message to Cubans. Prof. Mooney also notes Pope Benedict’s emphasis on marriage, an aspect of the homily overlooked by the media, and why this was such an important point of emphasis for an ailing culture in Cuba. She also notes that the pope brought up the issues of faith & reason and his concern over the relativism that has been creeping into the intellectual thought of many Western nations. We finish off the interview with Margarita’s thoughts on how the pope’s visit has affected the Cuban Catholic Church and whether it exaccerbated or healed some rifts within the institutional leadership as to how the Church must deal with the regime. It is noted that some priests have preferred a more confrontational approach while the hierarchy has urged more prudence in dealing with a regime that appears to be at an important crossroads with both Fidel and his brother Raúl entering their twighlight years. Prof. Mooney closes with some optimistic thoughts about the future of Cuba and the role that faith will play in that nation. Recorded: April 16, 2012.

RELATED LINKS

Prof. Margarita Mooney’s webpage.

The Black, White and Gray blog on Patheos.com.

Direct links to Prof. Mooney’s blog postings on Cuba at Black, White, and Gray.

Faith Makes Us Live: Surviving and Thriving in the Haitian Diaspora, by Margarita Mooney.

RELATED PODCASTS

Margarita Mooney on Religion & Haitian Immigrants.

Roger Finke on Religious Persecution.

Jon M. Sweeney on The Pope Who Quit

tonygill — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 08:00:36 +0000

Winners never quit, and quitters never win. But does this old adage apply to the papacy in the 13th century? Independent scholar Jon M. Sweeney, editor-in-chief at Paraclete Press and author of numerous books about Christian history, joins us to discuss the life and times of Peter Morrone, who became Pope Celestine V’s in 1294. This discussion is based on his well-written and lively book, The Pope Who Quit: A True Medeival Tale of Mystery, Death, and Salvation. Celestine’s reign as the head of the Catholic Church lasted a short fifteen weeks before he voluntarily retired from the papacy, the only pope ever to do so willingly. After a brief diversion discussing Jon’s own personal religious background, we dive into the early life of Peter Morrone and trace his path from child in a large, relatively poor family to his life as a spiritual hermit. Despite his hermetic lifestyle, Jon notes that one of the ironies of Morrone’s life is that people were drawn to him, leading him to create and establish his own monastic branch of the Bennedictine Order. Peter Morrone’s life is one of venturing forth into the world followed by retreat, balancing contact with the ecclessia spiritualis (spiritual church) and the ecclesia carnalis (material church). Indeed, Peter’s life represents the ongoing tension within Christianity between those who saw it as a higher spiritual calling and those who used the offices of the Church for personal power and financial gain. After discussing how popes were chosen back in the 13th century, Jon then details the fascinating story of how Peter Morrone was selected for the highest office of the Church. And it all began with a simple letter complaining about the process of selecting popes. At 84 years of age, it appears as if Peter Morrone was a “safe choice” for pope that could buy the College of Cardinals a bit more time to negotiate between feuding families seeking the papal office. Jon then covers the various “oddities” and mistakes of Celestine V’s short tenure, including a plenary indulgence and the insistence that he live in a humble wooden hut within the walls of the palatial Castle Nuovo, built by Charles II in Naples and the building that housed the Holy See during this time. With the help of the interesting, and perhaps maniuplative, Cardnial Gaetani (of the Orsini) family, Celestine V is given a “legal out” from the throne of St. Peter, paving the way for Gaetani to become Pope Boniface VIII. We end the story in mysterious fashion with Friar Peter being arrested by Boniface on his way back to spiritual seclusion. After two years of imprisonment, Peter Morrone died at the age of 86. But was it murder? And we conclude with Jon’s thoughts on how this interesting tale of a rather obscure pope tells us about our contemporary religious landscape. Recorded: April 3, 2012.

RELATED LINKS

Jon M. Sweeney’s biography.

The Pope Who Quit: A True Medeival Tale of Mystery, Death, and Salvation, by Jon M. Sweeney.

Verily, Verily: The KJV – 400 Years of Influence and Beauty, by Jon M. Sweeney.

The St. Francis Prayer Book, by Jon M. Sweeney.

Born Again and Again: Surprising Gifts of a Fundamentalist Childhood, by Jon M. Sweeney.

Beauty Awakening Belief: How the Medeival Worldview Inspires Faith Today, by Jon M. Sweeney.

Paraclete Press.

Almost Catholic, a blog by Jon M. Sweeney.

RELATED PODCASTS

Jim Papandrea on the Early Church Fathers and Patristic Exegesis.

Rodney Stark on the Triumph of Christianity, Part II.

James Felak on Pope John Paul II.

Fletcher Harper on GreenFaith

tonygill — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 08:00:40 +0000

With Earth Day coming up soon, Research on Religion steps outside to examine how religion can have an impact on the natural environment. We invite Rev. Fletcher Harper, an Episcopal priest and executive director of GreenFaith, to discuss what spiritual faith has to do with environmental stewardship. GreenFaith is one of the oldest religiously-based environmental organizations in the country, starting out as an all-volunteer group known as Partners for Environmental Quality in the early 1990s. Rev. Harper begins by revealing how his interest in both religion and the environment developed over his life’s history, and then how he became connected with GreenFaith, first as a volunteer and then as its director. We cover the history of this organization and how it has interacted with other religious communities, as well as the secular environmental movement. Fletcher notes that it was not all smooth sailing and details some of the skepticism this religious environmental movement faced from different sectors of society. He also shares with us the ecumenical nature of the organization and reveals which denominations and faith traditions tend to be more receptive to connecting with his organization’s mission. It is not surprising that the Islamic and Hindu communities have been slower at connecting with GreenFaith given that theses minority faiths have more immediate ethnic and cultural issues that they are addressing in American society. He also mentions that Catholic clergy have been somewhat reluctant to get involved in the environmental movement given the association that some green groups have with population control. Tony then asks what type of projects GreenFaith is involved in, what a typical day in the life of Rev. Harper is like, and where his organization gets its funding. As for the latter, most of the financing comes from private contributions along with a few fee-based ventures such as training programs or helping other organizations locate opportunities to improve energy efficiency. GreenFaith does work in partnership with local and regional governments on occassion, and gets some funding from grants, but their efforts are mainly privately-based. This brings up the issue of whether Christians abdicate their responsibility for social action by often panning off work onto the government, which leads to an interesting philosophical discussion. We finish off by examining GreenFaith’s view of “market-based environmentalism,” which seeks to alter economic incentives in ways that individuals find it beneficial to conserve the environment on their own, with less government regulation. Fletcher talks about what he learned from the Property & Environment Research Center (PERC) in Bozeman (MT), where he participated in a week long seminar on this approach to environmental issues. Recorded: March 22, 2012.

Property & Environmental Research Center (PERC).

“Where Free Markets Meet Faith,” by Paul Schwennesen.

Doug Johnston on Missionizing Romania

tonygill — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 08:00:20 +0000

How can an inflatable, remote-controlled shark help to missionize the citizens of Romania? We pose this deeply philosophical question, and other queries, to Pastor Doug Johnston of the First Baptist Church of Redmond (Washington). Pastor Johnston has made six, short trips of roughly 10 days each to preach and teach at the Timisoara Bible Baptist Instiute. He recounts how he became involved in this ongoing project even though he didn’t consider himself a world traveler. We discuss the multi-faceted purpose of this trip, not only to help train Protestant clergy and laity in Romania, but to bring assistance to the orphanage attached to the Emmanuel Baptist Church located in Timisoara. Doug further tells us how he prepared for the trip including fundraising and then details his first harrowing experience at the airport shortly after landing in Romania for the first time back in 2002. We use this incident as a means of looking into Romanian culture and to reflect upon how things have changed there in the past decade, as well as thinking about how Protestant Christianity may have had an impact on the culture there. We further discuss the nature of Protestanism in the country as well as how Protestants have interacted with the historically dominant Romanian Orthodox Church. And what would an interview on Romania be without a brief digression on Vlad the Impaler (a.k.a. Count Dracula)? We finish the interview with the story of the Air Shark and Pastor Johnston’s reflections upon what he has learned from his experience with the good people of Romania. Recorded: March 20 and 23, 2012. (Re-recording due to technical difficulties.)

Frontline Fellowships.

RELATED PODCASTS

Jeff Rose on Street Preaching.

Allison Pond on Being a Mormon Missionary.

Catherine Wanner on Religion in Russia.

Christian Novetzke on Kung Fu Fighting & Eastern Religions

tonygill — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 08:00:50 +0000

Get into the octagon with Prof. Christian Novetzke, associate professor at the University of Washington’s Jackson Shool of International Studies, as we spar intellectually about the relationship between the martial arts and Eastern religions. We walk through Prof. Novetzke’s syllabus for the class he recently offered at the UW entitled “Everybody Was Kung Fu Fighting: Seminar on World Cultures throug the Asian Martial Arts.” We start by discussing Christian’s name and his “accidental” discovery of karate. The first interesting challenge that arises in this interview is to define yoga as a martial art. Prof. Novetzke does this by relying upon the concept of “self-actualization,” which he contends is related to all of the martial arts and moves us into our discussion of how religion and philosophy form a fundamental underpinning of these physical activities. Whilst talking about yoga, we also discuss the recent criticism levelled on this form of martial art by Pastor Mark Driscoll of Mars Hill Church. This sets up an intriguing discussion of what constitutes religion and the relationship between religions such as yoga and Christianity. We then also chat about Driscoll’s commetary regarding the connection between mixed martial arts (MMA) and Christianity, with Prof. Novetzke noting that a surprisingly high number of MMA fighters are also outwardly devout Christians. We then return to Eastern religions and other martial arts covering different aspects of Zen, Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, and Confucianism. Throughout the conversation we also reflect upon educational pedagogy (i.e., how we teach our subjects of expertise) and what students pulled from this rather unique and interesting course. Recorded: March 12, 2012.

Religion and Public Memory: A Cultural History of Saint Namdev in India, by Christian L. Novetzke.

Mark Driscoll’s post on mixed martial arts.

Zen and the Martial Arts, by Joe Hymans.

Tao of Jeet Kune Do, by Bruce Lee.

Zen Flesh, Zen Bones, edited by Paul Reps.

Yoga: Discipline of Freedom, by Barbara Miller.

Blood in the Cage, by L. Jon Wertheim.

Timothy Shah on the Case for Religious Liberty

tonygill — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 08:00:19 +0000

What case can be made for promoting religious liberty worldwide? Why is religious freedom often considered the “first freedom”? And should religious liberty really be a strategic objective for US foreign policymakers? Prof. Timothy Shah – associate director of the Religious Freedom Project at the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs and an a visiting assistant professor at Georgetown University — joins us to discuss the recent monograph he authored under the auspices of the Witherspoon Institute’s Task Force on International Religious Freedom. Tim starts the program by explaining what the Witherspoon Task Force saught to accomplish and also details how his own interests in religious freedom grew from a tragic incident in Gujarat, India. We then dip into a variety of justifications for why religious liberty should be a major concern for both policymakers and civilians around the world, starting with the anthropological reasons behind religious freedom. Justin Barrett’s research, recently discussed on a separate podcast, serves as our anchor here as Tim argues that the innate tendency for humans to seek out the transcendent provides an important justification for promoting religious liberty and the human dignity it requires. Dr. Shah then covers the moral case for religious freedom and summarizes how three religious traditions — Judaism, Christianity, and Islam – view the subject. The topic of apostasy figures into this discussion, particularly as it pertains to the recent case of Youcef Nadarkhani in Iran. Following the moral case for religious freedom, Tony brings up the issue of political and strategic justifications, noting that political rulers often dislike religious freedom since they fear it may promote conflict within their borders, as it did in India. Tim answers these concerns arguing that religious freedom is certainly better than other political options and we engage in a thought experiment based on a scenario where everyone in a population had the same beliefs. That exercise proves enlightening. Along the way, we also ruminate about why so many secular elites — be they policymakers or academics — tend to downplay the vital importance of what is often called “the first freedom.” A few stories about Tony’s visit to the Witherspoon Institute and a 2011 colloquium on religious liberty at Princeton Theological Seminary are sprinkled throughout the interview. Recorded: March 13, 2012.

Religious Freedom: Why Now? Defending an Embattled Human Right, by Timothy Shah.

Berkley Center Conference on Religious Freedom & Health Care Reform (March 22, 2012) mentioned in podcast.

God’s Century: Resurgent Religion and Global Politics, by Monida Duffy Toft, Daniel Philpott, and Timothy Shah.

Freedom of Religion, Apostasy and Islam, by Abdullah Saeed and Hassan Saeed (mentioned in interview).

RELATED PODCASTS

Thomas Farr on Religion, Religious Liberty, and US Diplomacy.

Justin Barrett on the Naturalness of Religious Belief.

Daniel Philpott on Religious Resurgency & Democratization.

Monica Toft on Religion, Terrorism, and Civil War.

Margarita Mooney on Religion & Haitian Immigrants.

Allen Hertzke on Religious Liberty.

Roger Finke on Religious Persecution.

Jason Jewell on John Locke and Religious Toleration.

Rodney Stark on the Triumph of Christianity, Part II

tonygill — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 08:00:57 +0000

What path did Christianity take following Emperor Constantine’s Edict of Milan in 313? We address this question with Prof. Rodney Stark, co-founder and co-director of Baylor University’s Institute for Studies of Religion. This interview is the second in our three part series examining Prof. Stark’s book, The Triumph of Christianity. We begin by looking at what effects the Edict of Milan had on Christianity, including both the benefits and drawbacks. A discussion of the downside of becoming an official state religion brings us to a discussion about the Church of Power, where clerical offices were often held for personal gain, and the Church of Piety (e.g., monasticism) that pushed back against institutional corruption. We also note how the level of religious practice among the European peasantry has been exaggerated during this period and what implications that holds for secularization theory. Both elements were in play during the medieval era. We then examing whether or not the “Dark Ages” were really that “unenlightened” or merely a caricature imposed upon that time by thinkers such as Voltaire. Rod argues that Europe actually flourished after the collapse of the Roman Empire and Christianity was a big part of economic and moral progress during the millenium stretching from the 5th century to the 15th century. We discuss the Church’s role in ending slavery as well as its support for scientific inquiry. Galileo becomes a topic for our discussion as Prof. Stark demonstrates why this renowned scientist was actually censured by the Church … and it wasn’t because of his scientific theories, but rather how he presented them. We finish off by looking at religious dissent, touching briefly on witchcraft and the Protestant Reformation, which brings us to the topic of the Spanish Inquisition, which Prof. Stark also notes has been badly misrepresented in some academic circles. Recorded: March 2, 2012.

RELATED LINKS

Rodney Stark’s biography at Baylor University’s Institute for Studies of Religion.

The Triumph of Christianity: How the Jesus Movement Became the World’s Largest Religion, by Rodney Stark.

The Victory of Reason: How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism and Western Success, by Rodney Stark.

One True God: The Historical Consequences of Monotheism, by Rodney Stark.

Discovering God: The Origins of the Great Religions and the Evolution of Belief, by Rodney Stark.

RELATED PODCASTS

Rodney Stark on The Triumph of Christianity, Part I.

Rodney Stark on The Crusades.

Steven Pfaff on the Protestant Reformation.

Jim Papandrea on the Church Fathers and Patristic Exegesis.